Selective Consciousness
by 100-series
Summary: For her to know what would happen to her and reach out to me despite that was something amazing, and I won't forget it. [Sakura speaks to the URTV] [complete]


**title:** Selective Consciousness  
**disclaimer:** I don't own Xenosaga, beeeyotch.  
**Description:** _For her to know what would happen to her and reach out to me despite that was something amazing, and I won't forget it. sakura speaks to the URTV_

* * *

I have never had a name to speak of until that girl gave one to me, and even then it was only hers to use and she died before she was able to use it very much. For everyone else there are only several 3-digit numbers to call out, each assigned to a piece of myself. I suppose the others would think its odd, having someone call the name of your hand or foot, and watching that part walk away and hold a conversation all on its own. But I don't mind. I like being everywhere, all by myself and yet never alone. I'm never going to be alone. That's why the white monster hates me, because he's going to wander the earth forever and ever, and I'm never going to be alone. I'm sure that he was happy when he heard that my female pieces were dying away. At least he is honest about it.

I don't have a gender, though I am mostly male. My female pieces are dying and falling away, but it doesn't hurt. They're like my fingernails or hair or dead flakes of skin. They're worthless and I don't feel a thing when one of their existences evaporates. But when the Y-types are taken, it hurts. When part of me still lives and breathes and I can feel it, but the U-DO takes it away. It feels like I'm being tortured, my cut away one by one with a dull blade, and I know that the knife is against my flesh again and I can't do anything but squirm and bear the pain. The red monster acts like he cares about me but he just wants to think that he does. He is not my keeper, _I_ am the oldest one. I should be the leader. I should have been born the link master. He is a liar. He doesn't care if I die.

They don't die when that happens. They don't just die. They invert. They become that which cancels myself. They become that other thing, that other person. He's myself, but I don't know him. It feels like hollow needles are siphoning out my blood until I'm empty. When there are more of them than there are of me, what will happen? Or when he eats me alive and I'm nothing left but him, what will happen? I don't suppose I have to worry, because that black monster will clean up what remains of me. He is the only monster that understands, but I don't care for him any more for it. He isn't kind to me. Rather he acts as if I don't exist, only the other monsters are his brothers, I don't belong to him.

She was only one person who was kind to me. I didn't need or want her kindness but I appreciated it. It strengthened my wavelength and now I can fight the U-DO. And for her, I managed to afford some respect. Humans don't often accept their fate and they lie. Children, as I understand, are even worse than the adults that I know. For her to know what would happen to her and reach out to me despite that was something amazing, and I won't forget it.

But it doesn't mean that I cared for her.

"Hello," the small, brown-haired girl said meekly to the unit designated 649. I was assigned to remain a certain distance in meters away from her imaginary home, so he was standing just that far away facing into the forrest, as many of the others were in different places throughout the encephalon area. I suppose the blank look in all of my eyes was peculiar to her, as she waved her hand as if to make sure that I was awake. When I turned to acknowledge her action she smiled. "What are you doing?" she asked me. She had a curious expression in the deep green eyes that she possessed. I didn't like them.

"I am not allowed to go near your house, Miss Sakura Mizrahi," 649 replied. I was instructed to address her that way. "Its not safe. Units 666, 667, and 669 are not here. Please go back home."

She rocked on her heels in a shy fashion, the violet slippers she wore digging into the dirt path. "But you are here, right?" she said. "And there aren't any monsters around, so its okay."

"Is there something I can help you with?" I asked her. She was beginning to annoy me and I tried my best to let her know it. When she failed to follow my instructions I didn't know what I should do. I was not permitted to force her to do anything.

She smiled again. "Hey, what's your name?" she asked, ignoring the question.

"URTV Standard Unit 649," I replied. Unit 649 scratched his head in puzzlement.

"That's your number," she replied sadly. "Don't you have a name?"

"There are too many of me to give out names," I replied honestly.

Her timid demeanor disappeared abruptly. "Thats not right!" she insisted. "I mean... Rubedo said that there's a lot of you, but you're all one person... kind of..."

"Our weak waveform supports only one collective consciousness," I replied, scoffing at the use of 666's unique variant name.

She smiled again. "Well, you should have a name, then!" she answered. "You, really you, not just _one_ of you... it can be the name for all of you together."

I didn't know how to respond and 649 experienced a series of physical responses that I was not familiar with. His heart began to beat faster and his breath shortened. "What would the point of that be?"

"So I will have something to call you when I talk to you," she replied. Another playful grin appeared on her face. "I'll give you a name since you don't have one and I can't ask Doctor Yuriev to give you one..."

I watched her intently as she broke eye contact with 649 and began to look about the trees in thought as if she would find my name written in the branches. When I realized that she was putting so much thought into this for me, for the person who is me, I felt strange. The technicians informed me later that I experienced extremely unusual waveform reactions at that time. They were positive, desired wavelengths; but as it happened, I had no idea what I should do.

She looked up at me again as something occurred to her. "Sal!" A small laugh bubbled out of her lips. "Because of your hair color, its sallow..."

"Wouldn't it be right to call me _Salbedo_, then?" I said bitterly, biting at her with the words in disgust at the idea.

"No, just Sal," she argued. "Its a fun name like I might call a friend if I had any."

"Friends..." I grumbled. The thought of that was very annoying. 649 kicked a rock down the path.

"You don't have any friends?" she asked me. There was a tone of pity in her voice. "But you can talk, so..."

"I am the only friend that I need."

She looked down, a sad and distant expression on her face. "I tell myself that sometimes too. But now that you boys are here, I feel lonely when you are gone. I hope you will come see me often."

"Unit 666 sees you often enough." This was met with several moments of thoughtful silence.

"Umm... Sal...?" she asked, turning timid again. 649 raised his head up defiantly as I looked at her. "Can I ask you something?"

"I can't stop you from asking," I said in a biting tone, trying to push her away with my words since I was not allowed to touch her.

"Will you die someday?" she asked me. 649's eyes opened widely and he stopped breathing. I couldn't find any words to put into his mouth, but she continued. "Rubedo never told me that some of you die sometimes. I overheard it today, the doctors were talking about it."

"I will die when my waveform becomes so weak that it collapses," I replied. She didn't understand, though obviously she knew a good deal more about waveforms than the average twelve-year-old girl. "At least... I hope so. I hope that I'm not still alive if enough of my bodies are infected by U-DO that my entire wavelength inverts. But then... that's what 669 is for."

"Does it hurt when that happens?" she asked me, then she did something strange again. She put her hand on 649's shoulder. I wasn't allowed to touch her, but she was the one who touched me. I wasn't so hateful and insecure as _Albedo_ that I would push her down and call her a whore. Maybe this is because a small part of me at least was female, as long as those units clung to life. At the same time I was angry. Somewhere, other parts of me were stumbling and tripping on things or simply stopping in the middle of their tasks because I couldn't focus. It was all her fault, and I wasn't allowed to make her stop.

"It hurts more than anything you can imagine."

Her hand gently slipped from 649's shoulder to his upper arm and wrapped with the other hand around the limb to hold that small piece of me there. I couldn't tell if she was trying to comfort me or seek comfort from me. "I'm sorry," she said. "I never knew. I don't want any of you to get hurt on my account. I'm not... I'm not going to get better anyway..."

I did feel a strange urge to tell her otherwise; but it was simply because I wanted her to go home, not because I wanted to believe it. _Rubedo_ might have embraced her at that very moment and told her a lie that he believed himself, but that proved that he was a monster who lived in lies. We all knew that this girl was going to die and that our father was simply using her for field practice, but I was not allowed to tell her that. Still, I was surprised.

"Don't worry about me," I said. "It's not for your sake. I only want to learn to fight the U-DO and kill it."

She nodded. "Hey Sal... if you live a long time, will you remember me?"

From her sadness, it seemed that she already knew.

"I don't think I'll be able to forget."


End file.
